Nicholas Graham, a spokesman for New York-based AOL, Friday acknowledged that a "technical glitch" on Wednesday caused the problem when AOL technicians installed "some sort of [software] tool" that apparently caused the e-mails to be blocked.

"A technical glitch arose on AOL late Wednesday affecting 50 or 60 different Web links in e-mails," Graham said. "We discovered the issue early Thursday morning, and our teams started working to identify the software glitch at that time. It had been fixed by Thursday afternoon."

Several other companies and organizations affected by the e-mail blocking problem also contacted AOL about the difficulties, Graham said, but he said he could not identify them due to confidentiality rules. "This was, simply put, just a glitch affecting a bunch of different and varied companies and organizations."

Graham said he is not sure why the glitch affected only 50 to 60 Web links.

A spokesman for MoveOn.org Civic Action, one of the nonprofit groups that is involved in the DearAOL Coalition, said the AOL repairs came only after the protest group announced that AOL was blocking e-mails containing the Web link.